Garanimals

Remember these, you match the top to the bottoms and they go together. Sometimes, I think these could still be used by my DH if they came in mens sizes. LOL. Anyway, I got some Hero Arts animals that I thought were just too cute. I paired them with DCWV Nana's nursery pack to make what I thought were some cute kid cards. I am going to try to get the courage to bring some sets into this mother-child boutique in the town where I work. I always have great intentions, but am wimpy when it comes to actually going in and selling myself, ideas. Oh well, I had fun coloring these with my Copics, using the new scallop punch on some and using the '07 In colors for the card bases

Bottle of Red

I love this wineabella, she can be so many things, dinner, congrats, thinking of you, etc. I colored her with my copics. The layout is from sheetloads.

Reach for the Stars

I did a VSN and posted this. You had to have stars on your card. I love what people do with stars, but I'm not as successful. I'm thinking about buying the nestie stars because how can you screw up nesties, I mean really. This is a Hanna stamp, and the patterned paper is K and Co, the card is from DCWV from Joann's in a box. Thanks for looking.

I had a vision....

And it worked. Do you have kids? Are you looking for things to entertain them for more than 3 minutes? EVERYONE loves bubbles. They have saved me many times. I had bought these at Walmart for 1.00

They are nice because they come in different colors too. Hey a dollar?? Can't go wrong. Plus you can refill them. Well I had this idea that because of the colors they could be made cooler, prettier, for girls, cooler for boys. So I thought maybe I could stamp them in Stazon. I did it and look, it came out great!!!! I even had my 3yo and 6yo helping me.

Here are the finished ones:

I laid my clear stamps on my table, inked them, then rolled the bubbles over them. I made some small flowers with fabric paint. If I had more Stazon colors, I could have stamped everything. But, I only have purple, black, and dark green. Can you say psyched!!! 2 of them are birthday gifts for a party we are going to tomorrow, and 2 are for my 2 favorite redheads. Here is a close up, because I am blog challenged and don't know if when you click it gets bigger or not.

Thanks for looking.

Luxury Monogram

I got the Luxury Stack, from DCWV for 50% off at Joannes--woooo hooo. I stamped the circle from PTI boxes and tags in a brown to match some of the swirlys. This set was ordered from my sister for a teacher. It is really sparkly IRL. I just love making monograms----can you tell???LOL

Martha Monogram

My nephew got married in a civil service to his fiancee. They plan to have a big wedding celebration when they've saved up some more money, but in the meantime, I wanted to give them something to acknowledge the very special commitment they have made to each other. I wish them lots of love and happiness, and although not always easy, a loving, truthful marriage is one of the special sacraments of life. Blah, blah, blah, enough of that. I stamped the monogram filigree stamp from Martha Stewart in Pallete spring moss, and put the Brenda Walton Clear stamps in the middle for Josh and Natalie. These are single note cards (1/4 sheet of 8.5 x 11). I figured they'd be nice to use for quick thank yous or if they wanted to send out pictures of their wedding. I love packaging nice ensembles in the clear boxes. Thanks for looking.

Lily

I love this Dress Up Lily set. I 'm still learning at positioning it and still working with my copics. I Love coloring her to look like the person I'm sending it to.

Great Color Combo

So I love this color combo--turquoise and chocolate chip. I really must use it more. This card is yet another with the SAME sketch, I know I need to move on, I had cut soooo many out when I was in the "mode". The paper is MME, and I used distress ink, in brown and colored with my copics. The smaller blue mat, is the back of some DP colored with the chisel side of my copic that I used to color the flower- a perfect match.

WELCOME ERIN

I think I told you I'm an aunt, again. My beautiful baby niece was born. I had to go see her in the hospital when she was only 5 hours old. She is sooooo pure, and beautiful and precious. Anyway I couldn't go to the hospital to see my sister and her, empty handed. I mean home baked cookies was a must!! I had a tub of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that I baked up 3 dozen of to bring to my sister. I remember after having my girls anything home baked and sweet was just so wonderful. Of course 3 years laters I'm still paying for that, but getting closer to my pre-baby weight. Any way, I digress. back to the hospital. I wanted to bring something special to her because she has so wanted a baby girl and I have 2 of them, so I was trying to figure what I could bring. I put together a name frame, using All In the family from SU. It was just something quick, but meaningful, that I thought would look cute in the hospital room when people came to visit. Of course, I didn't know she was going to check herself out of the hospital 20 hours later so she could go home, to her other 3 children and husband, to get "some sleep". :) At any rate, she liked it.

I colored with my copics and wrote the names below with a black souffle pen. sorry for the glare, I forgot to take a picture until I was at the hospital.

A little birdie told me.... of a sketch

These are more of the same sketch that I got from the sheetloads of cards site. This little birdie, from SU, I bought because of the versatility of the set, and it lends itself to paper piecing, to show at workshops. However, when I saw this DCWV Nana slab, that had both glitter and seemed to be made specifically for this set I had to buy it. I had bought it to use in the scrapbook I was making for my sister for her newborn daughter, but had to "borrow" those pages. The sketch calls for three embellishments in the corner. I didn't want to cover too much of the paper, so chose 2. I punched out the flower from some DP that I HAD to have, but never used, and now do not LOVE anymore. So I turned it over and colored it with the chisel side of my copic the same color as I colored the birdie. Then it's a perfect match!!!

Sheetload of Cards

I found sheetloadofcards, which is a monthly e-zine. You know an electronic type magazine. They show you great sketches, with the measurements of how to cut and assemble like 6 cardfronts, or 8, or whatever depending on the sketch and month. I gave it a try with Mikey, from Hanna stamps, and some green, masculine colored paper. They went together very quickly and I added them to my stash.

The one below is one of the cards separately. I made a little embellishment out of one of the smaller stamps that came in the set, a baseball hat.

This last one is using the workout girl from Let's get Physical, another Hanna set-- just had to get my girl in there.

MFT Mother's Day

If you read my blog you'll remember that I just had a round birthday. Well my AWESOME sister bought me a 36 set of Copics. DOES SHE ROCK OR WHAT!!!! She does. She ordered them from MFT, and the set she had was delayed in shipment, I think from China, and Kim at MFT was so awesome she sent her the Mother's Day set and a quickie glue pen too. So my sis gave me those too. Plus she made me a truly incredible scrapbook, that has pictures through the year. If you knew that my sister has like everything from Creative Memories because she has 3 boys, 8, 6, and almost 4, and now a newborn daughter, but hasn't completed any of her scrapbooks-- because, um, she a little busy-- you'd realize how much even more awesome it was of her to make the scrapbook for me. She is officially done scrapbooking for the year. LOL. Funny thing is that I had made a girl scrapbook, minus the photos, for her and had given it to her for a shower gift less than 2 weeks before.

Any way , I made this card for my sister to give to my mom for mother's day.

I made this one for my mother in law. The paper is Amy butler, the cardstock is SU, and the flowers are paper flowers from WalMart.

I love coloring with my copics, I'm not that great with them, but love them anyway.

Monograms

I am really into monograms these days. I made these cards for the teachers (for teacher appreciation day) at my daughters preschool/daycare. The girls that work there are just great and I feel so grateful that they are because it gives me a sense of calm to have my daughters there the 2 days they go there. They really appreciated it. The patterned paper is from MME, and the circles are from PTI tags and more, the letters are from a Brenda Walton set I got at Michaels.

40 and Fabulous

This is my sister and my longes best friend. She is at my 40th birthday party and 8 months pregnant with my niece. This picture was taken in April. On May 2nd Erin was born and is soooo sooo cute, beautiful and another example of modern day miracle.

Easter Pim

These are the Easter pins I made for the ladies that joined us for Easter. These were my mom, sister, SIL, MIL, and some nieces. Sorry for the blurry picture, but how I made it is that I punched a scallop out of shrink plastic, stamped brilliance perarlescent blue roses background and then PTI black cross. After I shrunk it with my heat gun, I put glue and microbeads on them. Everyone loved them.

Autograph Books

These are the autograph books I made for our trip to Disney. I purchased the notebooks at Michaels in the 1.00 section and covered with scrapbook paper that I had and stamped the names onto them. The girls loved them and we collected quite a few signatures in our trip through the magic lands.

Basket O' Cards

This is a basket of 40 cards and envelopes that I made for a raffle for my daughters school PTO. I donated it to the PTO, but don't know how much they made as I was on VACATION when the raffle took place.

More Mickey Moments

Here are some more pictures from Disney. We truly enjoyed ourselves. Can't wait till next time...

This is me an my 2redheads inside "Its a Bugs Life", which is a 3D aminated show. Don't the girls just look yummy!!!!

I don't know if you can see the girls shirts or not, but I MADE THEM, sort of. I stamped a flourished stamp from Inkadinkado, in MoulinRouge Pallette ink from PTI, then ironed on the Mickey iron-on. I was psyched, because they really looked like good, Disney shirts. Plus with the ears, I mean who could resist????

Our Trip

Here we are on our trip in Florida. We had a wonderful time and can't wait to go back. Definitely recommend the dining plan. We saved a bunch and it was so much easier.

This was on our way into Animal Kingdom. These days it's rare to have all 6 of us together.

Bad Blogger

I've been a bad blogger. We had much going on, a family vacation to DisneyWorld, school vacations and a 40th birthday. I am back from the lengths though and think I created a signature. Let's see if it works.

Press and Seal

So, I am unmounting my SU sets and other wood mounted stamps-- like many others. The ones that I have that are only rubber, I have purchased EZmount for. But the ones that are already on rubber and foam, seems crazy to take off of foam to put back on. So, I tried Press and Seal, you know the stuff for food, that is a little sticky. So far it has worked. I don't know if it will be a long term solution, but figured I'd share. Thanks for checking in.

A note from

This is a gift set for my SIL whose birthday is this month. She just got her first FT job, you know the career kind. She's a librarian. She really wanted to be a youth librarian, which is for teen aged kids, and she got the job. She just loves it. I figured she could keep these on her desk for when she needs to write a note to someone. I made 2 of each color and a little box to keep them in. Hope she likes them. I didn't have ribbon to match the coral colored one, so I colored some clear baubles, from Michaels.

Here is a close:

Pink Birdie

Another card using a little birdie told me... set from SU! The card base came from DCWV pack, the DP is from the Nana, baby girl 12x12 pack. Ribbon is Wrights, I bought 100yd of it and the pin is a corsage pin that I just glued the little dragonfly to the end to cover the sharp point. They are by Fibrecraft, and I think I got them at WalMart. Thanks for looking.

Thank you (x40)

So the other day I showed you my little birdie, and told you about my new niece that is going to be born in May. Well I wanted some girlie thank yous. My sister can have distinctive tastes though so I thought I'd make some classy thank yous and keep the girl theme. I figured anything through the cuttlebug is classy. I love, love, love my textile folder, and noticed it is getting worn, I need to get a new one for back up. Don't want to risk it ya know. Any way this is actually pink PAPER, I had to put it 2 or 3 sheets in at a time to avoid tearing it, but I printed the thank you on the printer, 4 to a page, then cut them and embossed them. The flower is from a bucket of bridal flowers, on sale 25% off at Michaels this week, and the bling in the middle is from a cell phone sticker. I really like the way they came out and I found a Victoria Secret box that I altered for deliver them in. So everything is pinky, pinky. I hope my sister likes them, but at least she'll have something ready to go.

How Tweet

Ok, that is lame, I know it. I got a little Birdie told me from my last Su order because I loved how easy it was to paper piece him. Now that I look at him, I need to add a grounding line to him. But, this DP is on Sale at Joann right now, it is DCWV Nana pack. It's 12x12 and it's baby girl. I bought it to do a scrapbook for my sister who is having a girl- her 4th child, but first girl and the first girl in 30 years on her husbands side of the family. Can you say spoiled a little??? Any way, I went through it and there were so many of the 48 pages that I took for spring cards, there were cherry pages, strawberries, flourishes, etc. It was a good 9.99. The DP is sparkly and has glitter in it. Thanks for looking and have a great Monday.

Papertrey Perfect Match

Perfect match for the pocketbook. LOL! I bought the Aquamist cardstock and ink, as well as everyday blessings, which I love, love, love, love. OK, I love it. I'm whipping through the cardstock and will need to order more. I've found so many DP that can go with it. YIPPEE, as you know I'm trying to use up a lot of what I have. Here are a couple of cards I put together. The dp is from my minds eye.

I also made one where I put glitter on the cross. And stamped one of the awesome sentiments on the front of the card, in aquamist pallett. I love the look of tone on tone, and with these beautiful sayings and font, I think it looks really classy.

I am still alive

I had been sick, but not for a month. Hanging my head in shame, I am back with some posts. I actually have been busy stamping, so but wasn't good taking photos and actually SENT a bunch of cards out. Here is a post of some Easter Cards. The images are Amuse and I flocked the bunny. I had to bling the cute little nose. I'm trying to put patterns together, because I never do and am not good at it, but these two were on the reverse side of each other in a K&Company pack. Not sure that I like it, but figured, it wasn't my fault if they didn't go together....

The cardstock is SU Pretty in Pink, stamped in brilliance Graphite Black, colored with Copics, flocked with white Stampendous Flock. The stars from MFT icing on the cake is stamped in Versamark on the righthand side. I made my own notebook page. Thanks for looking.

I had to show you more

I know you have seen my valentine recycles, but I had to show you this one up close. I had to show this to you because I want you to look at the bling. These are still from the same $1 find I found a Michaels. I love the blue ones in the center of the flowers and the green ones. I think they coordinate beautifully with the Scooby colors. This is just using all left over things I had, YIPPEE!!!! Thanks for looking.

More Recycled Cards

Like my last post, these were made with valentines. These were from my older daughters choice. At first, she wasn't going to give me any. I was explaining to her these were going to be birthday cards that she could give to a friend when she got invited to a birthday party--yadda yadda. No Go. HMMM I thought, I'm gonna have to "sell" this a little better. I pondered for a quick second. Then I said "I don't think that all the boys are going to want Bratz Valentines anyway. It's up to you, but, you can have some of last years Scooby-Doo ones if you share". SHE SHOOTS..... SHE SCORES!!! It worked, she ante'd up.

She liked the results and anxiously waits for a friends birthday to give them too. I thought they came out pretty good too, so I wanted some for boys-- I have 3 nephews so I made a few Scooby ones too, in case we have a boy birthday party to go to.

I love the look of the clean, crisp white. It may be lost on children, but the valentines are shiny, so hopefully that will be enough. I was gifted a reem of 65lb cardstock that is white. It is very brite, but not thick enough for a card base. I figured I'd use some of it for stamping images on and for the CB of course. These were made with it for the embossed parts , and score lines were made with what else??.... my scor-pal. The Scor-pal truly is awesome. Thanks for looking and hope to see you soon....

Re-Use Reduce Recycle, Recycle, Recycle

Do you know this song? Do you have children? I have a 5yo who has learned all about recycling in school. This is a song they learned to sing about sharing this land with others and taking care of it. Now the song is in my mind. I am a recycler anyways, I like to do my part in keeping this precious earth as clean as possible. I always use the back sides of papers for my lists, etc. I re-gift in packages ( now known as "altering"), I save beautiful cards, packaging, ribbons, etc. I mean I'm a crafter!!-- aren't we the best recyclers???!!!!! Now though at my home, I get scolded if I don't save yogurt containers to use again, etc. It's good though that she learns it at school too, then she believes it for real. Any way, I recycled some valentines the girls picked out to use. My younges has her 3rd birthday party and it is a "Dora" theme. I used a leftover Dora and Boots calendar to make the invite (no pics though) and since she picked Dora valentines, figured I'd get a head start on the thank yous. Here are the Dora cards:

I had the background paper from a My Minds Eye slab, the cardstock that I ran through my Nestabilities was in my stash as was the ribbon. The green flower I had from WalMart, the bling is still from the 1.00 find a Michaels for a cell phone. It is in the shape of a pocketbook, I just cut off the ones I want. I ran the actual valentines through the CB with the Nestabilities too. Now, if I could only write in these during the party and put them in the goody bags as they leave. That may be asking a bit much. LOL

Cheers

Yummmmm, I love martinis. The flavored ones. I love Cosmos, pomegranite tinis, appletini's, chocolate martini's, lemon drops, you name it, I love it . Here is cosmobella. I paper pierced her pants to coordinate with the background paper.

Her skin is colored with skin white copie, the cardbase is a DCWV card from an assorted box from Michaels and the paisley is from DCWV holiday slab. I outlined her with cool grey too. I love the look you get with it. Thanks for looking.

Some Bellas In the Building

This is one of the first cards I made after I got my square nestabilities. I had gotten a 8x8 pad that was all prints, I cut the happy birthday into 4x4 squares. Then I cut one of the largest squares and cut it in half. My bella is colored with colored pencils. Again, this card was before I had any copics and was on a big pencil kick! Thanks for looking.

Good Old Perculators

So my best friend has a beach house that is awesome. It is on an island, less than a mile from the mainland, but an island still. It is so peaceful there. After taking a small boat over to it, it is total relaxation after you arrive. There is NO ELECTRICITY on the island and you can only run a generator for 2 hours a day. It is a great place to stamp, during the day anyway, a little tough at night. I ALWAYS bring a bag of stampin goodies when I visit. At any rate, I digress. We always make fresh coffee in a coffee press, but we heat the water up in an old stainless steel perculator on the top of a propane oven. When I saw the Coffee and Tea set from Crafty Secrets, I immediately thought of my very relaxing and enjoyable weekends. After I bought it, I really wanted the coffee perculator to be silver, like the stainless steel one, I had some silver paper and that worked good too, but then I found this silver tape in the hardware section at WalMart. It is used to tape the dryer vent. I stamped in in Stazon black, colored the cheeks with a sharpie, I didn't have my copics yet. The arm, because it is sooooo teeensy I dreaded cutting it. I did cut some. Then I had a lightbulb go off. I colored the arm section on the metal with my white signo gel pen then colored it skin tone after it dried. I like it like that!!!!!! So, here is my card and thanks for looking.

Crafty Secret

When you are making cards does this ever happen to you? Do you not want to stamp the sentiment on the card if you don't know EXACTLY who the card is for? I do. I don't want to stamp something , then not have it appropriate and have to tear the card apart, then put it back together. So, sometimes I'll stamp/design for the colors/patterns/feeling. Then when I need the card, I quickly look for a suitable sentiment. Something great about the clear stamps, like MFT Sassy Sayings, or others from PaperTrey, I can stamp them however I need them. This is one of the ladies from Crafty Secrets Coffee and Tea set. Love that set, it's awesome. Thanks for looking.

Cuttlebug one last time

Here's my last CB for a while. I get into a routine and then I keep doing them in different colors, folders, etc. Tomorrw I'll switch to something new. Here's the last one.

I would never, never had bought the fancy corner embossing if it hadn't been for seeing NoTimeToStamps beautiful cards. Now I'm in love with them. I have so many of the A2 folders, but the corners and smaller ones, I bought fairly recently. Now one of the girls at work has asked me to borrow this actual folder, because she saw the card I made like this and gave it to someone else I work with and she had it on her desk. Pretty in Pink cardstock and GP white cardstock. Thanks for looking.

Valentines Again

Ok, ok I know, Valentines again. Hey what can I say, I needed to get some done. I usually send out a bunch with the girls photo in it to family members. These I used my Cuttlebug-- ala No time to Stamp style, I added some stamping, which, eek I was nervous. I love the clean, crisp, monochromatic look, but had to take the chance. Here are a few:

These used the script folder for the Cuttlebug. I ran a 8in by 5 1/4 inch through the CB with the folder in the middle. Then I cut those at 4 inches and used the Scor-Pal with 2 lines. I had this ribbon and the generic blue/violet cardstock. The reason I made these, and the next few is because I re-organized my ribbon, well some of it onto the round tab punch and this color just was so fat on the spool. I said to myself "self, you need to use some of this ribbon immediately". Thanks for looking. The ink is from Ancient Page and is on a wheel that I got at Joanns, I think the color is pink pizzaz, the stamp is from an retired SU, year round cheer, either I or II. Thanks for looking

Valentine Cards

Remember my "using what I have", well I sort of did. The cardstock, the paper, the stamp were things I had. I used pretty in pink cardstock, this yummy paisley that is in a winter slab from DCWV, but I love it. I colored my "Loads of Love" truck with my copics and a siver ball point pen that I have. Now there is "something new" in this

See the row of bling. These were clear. I got them in the $1 spot at Michaels, they are part of a rectangle that is supposed to go on a cell phone. The sticky on there is soooooo strong. I colored them with the same copic I used to color the truck. I love them. They are already straight. This is something I am challenged with--- straight. Even with the Mat Pack. Oh well, util next time... Thanks for looking....

Copic Baubles

I found these clear baubles in the floral section of Michaels. I had seen a bag of them on Joanna's Creative Expressions blog. Hers were pink/purple variety and very pretty. When I was there I saw they had clear ones too. Since I've been coloring anything that doesn't move with my copics, I figured I'd give it the ol' college try. I colored some in my last posts trying to compliment the colors in my cards. I liked the way the browns came out, but the green was not the correct tone. So I got to thinking about my ink color chart that I made with all my ink pads. I decided to make one with the baubles since there are 5 ounces of them, which probably equates to like 1000 baubles. Heres what I came up with:

So now I'm thinking I can look at this and know which Copic or Bic Mark It I can use to get the color I 'm looking for. I was surprised how light some of my copics were on the baubles. I only have 48 of the copics, but as I get more I could add to the bottom of this chart. This is the back of a cardboard box I had. I just dotted the cardboard with glue, put the baubles on top, wrote with a pen below what color they were and then colored the bauble. I actually thought (started) about writing the name of the marker in it actual marker below the bauble, but decided to try to save my aging eyes by writing it in black ink with a ballpoint pen.
There were colored baubles there too, which if I do plan to get some when I go back, I figure I'll bring my cardstock chart with me and grab the ones I think will work best. I just didn't trust my memory that day. Thanks for looking. Have a great day.